Histories

Darius was astonished when he heard her answer, and sent someone who asked her: “Woman, the king asks you with what in mind you abandon your husband and your children and choose to save the life of your brother, who is less close to you than your children and less dear than your husband?”

“O King,” she answered, “I may have another husband, if a god is willing, and other children, if I lose these; but since my father and mother are no longer living, there is no way that I can have another brother; I said what I did with that in mind.”

Darius thought that the woman answered well, and for her sake he released the one for whom she had asked, and the eldest of her sons as well; he put to death all the rest. Thus immediately perished one of the seven.

While Cambyses was still ill, the following events occurred. The governor of Sardis [28.0167,38.475] (Perseus) Sardis appointed by Cyrus was Oroetes, a Persian. This man had an impious desire; for although he had not been injured or spoken badly of by Polycrates of +Nisos Samos [26.8,37.75] (island), Samos, Aegean Islands, Greece, Europe Samos, and had in fact never even seen him before, he desired to seize and kill him, for the following reason, most people say.

As Oroetes and another Persian whose name was Mitrobates, governor of the province at Dascyleium, sat at the king's doors, they fell from talking to quarreling; and as they compared their achievements Mitrobates said to Oroetes,

“You are not to be reckoned a man; the island of +Nisos Samos [26.8,37.75] (island), Samos, Aegean Islands, Greece, Europe Samos lies close to your province, yet you have not added it to the king's dominion—an island so easy to conquer that some native of it revolted against his rulers with fifteen hoplites, and is now lord of it.”[*](See hdt. 3.39.)